Sins of the Fathers
by Aletta
Summary: The children of the orginal cast must deal with the legacy left to them by their parents for better or for worse, beginning with the abduction of one of their own.....
1. Default Chapter

He watched them both with a critical eye, lips pursed slightly into a thoughtful pout as the two girls circled one another, staring at each other with the intensity of a pair of strange lions suddenly caged together. They watched each other with two sets of eyes that were equally blue, though of different shades, the smaller girl's eyes a brilliant shade of sapphire that were a match for his own, the taller's the piercing shade of flawless ice. They were, other than that, a perfect set of opposites. The taller girl had a good seven inches of height on her shorter adversary, hair of flawless sun-spun gold that unbound would have fallen long to her hips, a pale complexion, a long, lushly curved slim body, every hint of strong, wiry muscle standing out strong underneath her pale skin. The smaller possessed hair so brown it was nearly black, falling but to her shoulders, her scarcely five foot figure slender, boyishly so, her skin a darker, duskier shade, her strength utterly hidden, making her seem as dangerous as a rose petal.

But that strength was there, and evident, as the two young women came together in a clash of sparking metal and tossing hair, the tall blond bringing her blade down hard against the metal staff the tiny brunette sought to defend herself with. And defend herself she did, though it took much out of her, leaving her gasping audibly for breath and trembling as the blade of the blonde's gunblade screeched down her staff's length, piercing the early morning air.

"You'll never last if you try to pit brute force against her, Caira." He remarked. "She's got seven inches of height and half again your weight in muscle on you, and her endurance is significantly higher. Give her the advantage, and she'll beat you into the ground."

"Then why am I fighting her in the first place?!" Caira demanded with a gasp, as she finally forced the blonde aside and darted back a half dozen paces, her boots slipping slightly on the dew damp stone.

"Because you can't choose your opponents. Because sooner or later you're going to find yourself in hand to hand with someone who's strength lies in hand to hand, and not in distance. Because if you can't deal with such an adversary, I'm going to be a very unhappy only child." He replied dryly.

"And that's a bad thing?" the blonde asked, tossing a few escaped strands of long hair back over her shoulder and shifting her blade in her hands before coming in low and fast, knocking the staff up out of Caira's hands. She knocked Caira's feet out from under her with a swift sweep of one foot, and leveled her blade's point at the smaller girl's neck, letting it over a bare hairsbreath from the soft skin of her exposed throat. "You know, there are some benefits to being an only child." She continued with a savage little smile.

"Do _you_ want to deal with my father on a rampage because somebody had the bad sense to off his precious angel?" he retorted. "Or even worse, my _mother?"_

She considered that for a moment. "Your father I think I could handle. Your mother is another matter entirely. Therefore, you have a point." She lowered her gunblade, shifted it to one hand, and offered Caira her free one. "That wasn't bad, for your first try. But you'll have to do better if you expect to make it into SeeD."

Caira sighed, and let the blonde haul her to her feet. "Blame it on him. He hogged all the good fighter DNA for himself and left me with the scraps." She scowled at her brother.

He sighed and shrugged helplessly.

"Hit the showers, Caira. You've still got classes today." The blonde said sternly.

Caira sighed. "Yeah, yeah…" she dusted her hands down her pants, and headed off sulkly towards the glowing blue complex of Balamb Garden.

"You didn't need to be that hard on her, Karen." He said as his sister left earshot, turning to face the tall blonde girl.

Karen narrowed her ice cold eyes. "War is merciless, Lionheart. If you expect your sister to survive, I have to be harder on her than an enemy would."

"She's young. She's only thirteen." He protested.

"SeeDs start testing out at that age, even if they never actually make it that young." Karen shrugged one shoulder slightly. "She's old enough."

"My father didn't make SeeD until he was seventeen."

"You aren't your father. Neither is she." She gestured with her gunblade at the receding girl. "Remember that, Lionheart."

"And you aren't your father." He retorted coldly. "Or your mother. Remember that. And don't call me Lionheart."

Karen's face contorted into a mask of pure rage….and hurt?…..for a split second, before she smoothed it into an icy mask. "As you like, Elias." She slid her gunblade into it's holster at her side. "I have a report to file, and trainees to teach. As do you. Your sister is one of them. I'll oversee her training as I deem appropriate." She glared at him. "You're a convince when it comes to her. She feels comfortable listening to instruction from you. Don't give me reason to cut you out of her training." With that, she stalked off towards Garden.

Elias sighed, and rubbed his forehead with one hand. –Why me?…-

He was still half asleep when he managed to drag himself out of bed and into the bathroom. His wife was long gone, or so he figured judging by the fact that the tangle of sheets she made in the bed beside him was cool and empty when he'd reached out to it, hoping to feel her soft sleeping form still there. That struck him as odd. She'd never been a morning person. Then again, he thought with a sigh as he splashed down into the blissfully hot bathing pool sunken into the floor, neither was he anymore.

He blamed that squarely on her influence. Time was, he'd been ready to go at a moment's notice no matter what time of day or night. Having a spouse who preferred to sleep until at least ten if at all possible, however, tended to change things like that. Or so he preferred to think.

She would laugh, and tell him it was just because he was getting older. He didn't like to think of himself that way. He was forty this year…god, that would've seemed absolutely ancient when he was seventeen. An old solider, by the standards of the young. He didn't feel old, though. He preferred to think of himself as…more seasoned. Laguna, now, or Cid, they were old soldiers. He was just more experienced now than he'd been when he was seventeen, he reassured himself, as his eyes slid shut and he relaxed back in the hot water.

"Thinking?" her amused voice asked from behind. His eyes flew open. If it'd been anymore else, he'd have snapped around, ready to fight or flee at the unexpected intrusion. He knew her footfalls though, her voice, the sound of her breathing, even better than he knew his own. They'd long ago lost their ability to startle him.

"I'm not an old solider." He said dryly, biting back a yawn.

"Of course you're not." She agreed, crouching down behind him to lay an affectionate hand on his bare shoulder. He craned his neck to look back at her, smiling slightly.

"You look wide awake. Has hell frozen?"

"I was roused out of bed by your daughter, I'll have you know." She said a bit indignantly, dipping one hand down into the water and flicking a small shower of droplets into his face.

"So now she's my daughter. Funny. I seem to recall you having something to do with her too. Tell me, how did I manage to have two children all by myself?"

She gave him a little shove. "You know what I mean. Don't make me drown you. Our daughter is distressed."

"Over?"

"Her morning session with Karen went…badly."

He sighed. He'd been afraid it'd been something like that. "In her estimation, Elias's, or Karen's?"

"Hers. All Karen said about it on her training report was 'satisfactory'. I can't find our son. I suspect he's beating the daylights out of some hapless organism in the training center. Tell me, did you assign Karen as Caira's trainer just to annoy him?"

"I didn't assign Caira to Karen. I don't handle student assignments."

"Squall…"

He sighed. "Do you expect me to move her? Show that kind of favoritism towards my own daughter?"

"No….it's just…." She bit at her lower lip worriedly. "Karen's brutal."

"Karen's the best trainer in Garden. Our son notwithstanding. I can't arrange for her to be transferred to Elias. That would be nepotism, and I'd never hear the end of it. I suspect the training committee thought they were doing us a favor by putting Caira with Karen. She doesn't teach much anymore, and she's probably the most successful instructor currently teaching at all."

What he didn't say, because they both knew it, was how close Caira danced to washing out of Garden altogether. –Too much like her mother.- Rinoa had found the strength to fight. In his more honest moments, he doubted Caira ever would. Some people simply weren't cut out for the life of a solider, much less a SeeD.

Brutal or not, Karen was Caira's best hope for making SeeD. Karen had clobbered more hopeless seeming trainees into SeeD's than Caira Leonheart.

"I don't know…where she got that mean streak." Rinoa teased her lower lip a bit more between her teeth. "Quistis isn't like that."

Squall shut his eyes. –But Seifer is.- Aloud, he continued, "I wouldn't call her mean. She's hard on them. But she's cranked out some of the best SeeD's I have. She's one of the best herself." –And the person Karen Almassy's hardest on is herself.-

She was much like his own son in that. Though he doubted Elias would ever see it that way. –Funny, how a feud can stretch between generations…-

"Would you speak to her though? Just a few words?" Rinoa looked pleadingly into his eyes. "She'd get farther with Caira if she'd show a little sympathy now and then."

-Rinoa, love, I don't think any of the Almassy's know how to do that.- "I'll speak with her."

She bent down, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Thank you. I owe you."

He sighed, and nodded. "Mmmm. You do. Do you have anywhere in particular to be this morning?"

"Morning? It's almost afternoon."  
"You know what I meant."

"Not in particular, no. Why?"

He grinned slightly, and whispered a suggestion or two into her ear.

She giggled. "I think I can find the time for that…"

She was in her tiny office when he finally got around to looking for Karen Almassy, as he suspected she would be when he didn't find her in the training center or the library. Most of the instructors spent a great deal of their free time in their offices grading papers, making up tests, studying combat reports, and the like. Karen, being a dedicated teacher, spent even more time in hers than most.

She was perched on the edge of her desk reviewing a tape on the screen on her wall when he walked in, her blue eyes fixed on the figures sparring in the gray morning light. A glance showed it to be herself and Caira…this morning's session, more than likely, judging from the fact that he could hear his son's voice in the muted background. He stood quietly in the doorway, watching as she studied the screen in silence, paused the tape, backed it up, and played sections of it over and over, a tiny frown beginning to tug at the corners of her lips.

"She hesitated." Karen said at last, pausing the recording with the little black remote she held in one hand, backing it up, and playing a section of it over again in slow motion. "See? Here. She could have knocked my gunblade out of my hands there, just before I finished my final arch. She started to, dammit. Then she stopped." The little frown evolved into an all out scowl. "Why? Why did she hold back? Fear? Uncertainty? What?!" She pounded her free fist into her desk, making the assortment of pens, papers, picture frames, and the like she had scattered all over it jump.

"Have you ever tried asking her?" Squall asked quietly.

Karen sighed deeply. "No. Because I don't think she knows herself. She has that look about her, like she's scared of herself. I've seen that look before. I just don't know what's causing it." She looked over at him for the first time. "Commander. I'd ask why you're here, but I think I already know. Did Caira complain, or Elias?"

"Neither, actually. But Caira was upset and my wife was concerned."

"Mothers usually are." Karen glanced briefly at a picture of Quistis hanging up on the wall beside her desk, before looking back at him. "How can I help you?"

"You can start by giving me a status report on Caria. As her teacher to her father, not as a SeeD to your Commander."

"You don't ask easy questions." A tiny, lopsided smile twitched at the right corner of her mouth, in an expression that momentarily made her look terrifyingly like her father. It was the sadness in her eyes that made the difference; Seifer usually looked arrogant as all hell when wearing that same little half smile. "Permission to be blunt, sir?"

Squall cocked his head slightly at the unexpected request. "Granted."

"Sometimes I'm positive that she's poorly suited to life as a solider, and I want to wash her out of Garden completely before she gets herself or someone else killed. She's very intelligent, her mechanical aptitude and magical ability are both very high. But she makes mistakes, and an awful lot of them for someone as bright as she is. That tells me one of two things. She lacks nerve, and the temperament, to be a solider. Or she's got something coming between her and her potential. And her potential is, in my opinion, great."

"But." Squall prompted.

"Sometimes potential isn't enough. Especially in a situation like Caira's. Look at her. Look at who she is. Her father's the Commander of SeeD Special Forces. Her mother's the only living Sorceress. Her grandfather on one side is a respected Galbadian General, on the other, the longtime President of Esthar." Karen shrugged slightly. "It's not hard at all to doubt her motives for wanting to be a SeeD, a solider, a warrior. I understand her position. Perhaps I understand it too well."

"What?"

"I'm the daughter of Quistis Trepe, of a once failed SeeD instructor, of one of the defeaters of the Sorceress Ultimecia, of the Headmaster of Galbadia Garden…and Seifer Almasy, a failed SeeD trainee, the one time Sorceress's Knight, the betrayer of the Gardens, who no matter how hard he tries to make restitution will always have that hanging over him…and me. It's a hard, very hard, heritage to live with." Karen pushed off the edge of her desk and stood. "So I'm a hard instructor. I'm probably harder on Caira than anyone else would be. I have to be. Because if she isn't pushed, and prodded, and manhandled into getting past whatever's blocking her, she won't, not ever. Because she is who she is, that's dangerous. Most instructors would, to be perfectly frank, pass her along because she's your daughter. They've been doing that for a few years already. I suspect if someone earlier down the line had been harder on her, we wouldn't be having this problem now. I can't do that to her. She deserves better than that."

-Because my daughter deserves better than that, she'll do her best to pound my daughter into smithereens.- Squall sighed inwardly. –Rinoa won't understand that at all.-

"I don't want her death on my hands." Karen went on, surprising him. Her blue eyes were haunted. "I'd rather she hate me, for pushing her until she sobs for mercy and gives up, than watch her get killed and know that if I'd been harder on her, if I'd only been able to break through that wall she's built around herself, she might still be alive."

Squall nodded slightly. "The price of commanding….and teaching…is knowing that you're sending people to their death."

"Yes, sir. I can handle that. But if I'm sending people to their deaths, they're going to be people who have a good chance of making it out alive. Who have the best chance of making it out alive that I can give them."

He nodded again, firmly. "I can see why Quistis…and Seifer…are so proud of you. You're a good teacher." He said, making her blue eyes go very wide with surprise and her mouth hang open slightly. "I think you do understand, better than most, Caira's position. But try to be a bit kinder, now and then. You'd probably get further with Caira if you did."

"…Thank you, sir. I'll…keep that in mind."

He smiled, and turned to leave. "You do that. And Karen?" He glanced back over his shoulder, one hand poised to close the door behind him, just as he was walking out.

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, either. You aren't your father, or your mother."

"I know that." Karen said softly, as the door clicked shut behind him. She stared back at her mother's picture, her eyes searching those blue eyes, that serene smile. Her eyes flicked to the picture of her father on her desk, the intense look he gave the camera, as if something deep inside him was trying to burn through the skin and get out. "But nobody else seems to."

She sighed deeply, then returned her attention to the screen, calling up a few past sessions with Caira. If Caira had hesitated and pulled back that once, she'd certainly done so before…finding out what triggered that behavior in her was the first step to breaking it. Or so Karen hoped.

To call the mood Elias had sunken into foul was to make a drastic understatement.

"I am personally going to wrap that long blonde hair around Karen Almasy's neck," he announced to a bowl of steaming chicken soup. "And strangle her with it. Slowly."

Tara Dincht eyed him thoughtfully as she slurped down the remainder of her sesame noodles. "You gonna eat that soup, or yell at it? And if you're not gonna eat it, can I?"

Elias shifted his gaze from glaring at his own reflection in the golden broth to pinning the young woman with a deadly sapphire glare. "How the hell can you shovel that much food down your throat, look around for more, and not puff up like a pastry?"

Tara grinned at him. "Metabolism. Mine's like a blast furnace. Irritates the hell out of mom."

Elias stared at her. "You have sauce on your nose." He said dispassionately.

Tara's cheeks reddened slightly, and she rubbed the back of one hand across the offending blot. "Better?"

"Much." He sighed deeply, stared back down at his soup.

"What's bugging you, man? It's not like you not to eat." Tara asked worriedly.

"You're just heartbroken because that poor food is just sitting there going to waste." A husky male tenor said from behind Elias, chuckling.

Tara stuck out her tongue at the intruder, who sat down with a plate laden heavily with food in one of the free chairs scattered around their table. "Says you, Tiber."

"Yes, says I. Don't point that thing at me unless you intend to use it."

Tara batted big doe brown eyes at him. "Anytime, honey." She said with syrupy sweetness.

"Please, spare me." Elias covered his ears with his hands. "If you two are going to flirt at each other, do it somewhere else. I'm trying to brood, here."

"I could ask why, except I'm pretty sure it's a certain striking blonde woman I know with the initials K A." Tiber remarked, cracking open a can of cola with a hiss.

Elias looked up at him in surprise. "What? How did you?!"

Tiber grinned wolfishly at him. "I could claim some sort of great knowledge that would impress you vastly, but the simple truth of the matter was that I was standing behind you when you were threatening to wrap that delightful hair around her slender neck." He took a drink from his can.

Elias sighed in frustration. "Figures. Want to help?"

"Not particularly." Tiber replied mildly. "She'd kick my ass without breaking a sweat. And Iria would come after me with a high-powered rifle or a sawed off shotgun after. I don't want to die."

"Chicken." Tara said with a snort. She picked a chocolate chip cookie up from Tiber's plate and bit into it.

"Hey!" Tiber sounded wounded.

"You have two!" She reasoned with a smile, licking a smear of chocolate off her lips.

"Knock it off, both of you." Elias groaned. –With friends like these….- He pushed his bowl of soup towards Tara, who dropped Tiber's cookie with a little squeal of delight and dug in.

Tiber stared at her in disgust. "Cookie thief."

She wrinkled her nose at him and grinned between bites.

"I don't know what to do." Elias said at last.

"Who says you have to do anything?" Tiber asked.

"I should do something. Caira's my sister. Karen's just manhandling her. I'm an instructor…and her brother. Isn't it my duty to do something?" Elias reasoned.

Tiber thought about that for a moment. "Yes and no. As an instructor, it's your duty to be concerned that a fellow instructor might not be taking the best course of action with a student. As Caira's brother, you're allowed to want to pound said instructor into the ground for what you perceive as her abuse of your sister. But should you let those feelings mix?"

Elias sighed deeply. "Probably not."

Tiber shrugged, and took another sip from his soda. "I'm probably not the best person to ask. I'm an orphan; I don't have much experience with families. I teach classes now and then but I'm not an instructor the way you and Karen are."

Elias ran both his hands back deeply through his hair, tugging at it gently. "Yeah…."

Tiber bit into a sandwich and shrugged. "As I see it, your choices are to deal with Karen as Caira's brother, or as a fellow instructor. I don't see how you can mix the two. Bring up a complaint about her, or get her in a dark corner and pray that you intimidate her rather than the other way around."

"I could talk to Father." Elias sighed and rested his chin on one arm, staring broodingly off into space. "But that probably wouldn't accomplish much. He's adamant in not showing favoritism towards us, and he doesn't deal with instructors and trainees much at all."

"There's the fact that your father and hers had that little…ahh…feud way back when to contend with too. If you get him to act on Karen, people might see it as him punishing the daughter of Seifer Almasy, not of him disciplining an errant instructor." Tiber kept one eye on Tara, who was currently draining the last of the broth out of the soup bowl directly. "Tara, geez, I don't want to have to take you to the infirmary of you choke on a stray carrot or something…"

"Possibly." Elias shrugged slightly. "They still don't like being around each other without plenty of other people in the same room if they can help it, but Quistis was Father's instructor, and she's still one of his best friends. They called as much of a truce as they ever will a long time ago for her sake. But I can see how other people might think that."

"Must be hard for her." Tara spoke up suddenly, putting the bowl down and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Both young men turned to look at her in surprise. "On Karen. To be who she is. Wasn't she trained at Galbadia? That must have been a bitch, to be a student at the Garden where your mother is Headmaster and your father's still mostly remembered as the man who wrecked the place."

"Mmmmm. She seems to cope well enough." Elias said bitterly.

"You were a lot like that too." Tara went on. Elias's shoulders stiffened defensively. "Being the daughter of the SeeD Commander and the Sorceress. I know it's hard on Caira, too, to be who she is."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Elias asked angrily.

Tara smiled slightly. "Everything." She popped the last of Tiber's cookie into her mouth.

Elias looked over at Tiber. The other young man shrugged. "She's got a point."

Elias sighed deeply with frustration. –With friends like these….- he repeated to himself again, laying his head down on the table pillowed on his arms.

His head was killing him.

"I don't know what to do." Karen confessed, running a hand back through her blonde hair. "It's like beating my head against a brick wall. She's pulling back, hesitating. There's got to be something that's causing her to do it, but I can't find it, no matter how hard I look." She sighed, closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the water tinkling behind her. "I've reviewed all the tapes. I've wracked my brain until I think my head is going to explode. I can't see it. I can't find the common thread."

"You thought of asking for help?"

Karen sighed deeply. "I can handle it."

Her companion chuckled. "Your frustration would seem to suggest otherwise. That's why I won't let them strap me down to a desk, Almasy. I'm happier as a simple field SeeD."

"Nobody would ever call you a 'simple' SeeD, Iria Kinneas." Karen said, opening her eyes to look up at her friend.

Iria snickered. "No more than you're a simple instructor, Karen. I do what's needed. So do you. You'll figure it out. I have faith in you."

"I'm glad somebody does. Her brother wants to kill me."

"Eh, Elias was always too uptight. Not that I blame him. Having Squall Leonheart for a father's got to absolutely suck. Still, somebody really needs to get that stick out of his ass." She cocked her head slightly. "Has anyone tried getting him drunk?"

Karen arched one brow. "What exactly do you think that would accomplish?"

"I donno. Get him out of some of that clothing. Man's got an absolutely fabulous body." Iria sighed wistfully.

"You're drooling." Karen said dryly.

"Hey, I'm not dead yet, I can look at a gorgeous man and mentally undress him if I want to." Iria leaned against the railing of the walkway into Balamb Garden and sighed, tilting her head up towards the sun like an unlikely green eyed sunflower. "It's so warm here."

"You don't get out of that icebox you call Trabia Garden often enough."

"Nah, I do. I was sweltering in the jungles of Centra just last week. God that absolutely blew. But I got to make a big pretty bridge go 'boom', so I guess it was worth it." Iria stretched her arms out over her head, her joints popping at the movement, and she yawned. "I suppose I spend as much time at Balamb Garden as I do anywhere these days. I just don't get a lot of time to sit down and enjoy the weather. Half the time when I'm here it's dumping down buckets of rain."

"It does that quite a bit. Not as much as it snows in Trabia, though."

"True enough. But snow has it's charms. Mostly involving being able to snuggle together for warmth." Iria laughed as Karen made a face at her. "Or my father says." She added innocently.

"Uh huh. And what does your mother say?"

"That snow's good for making snowballs to knock my father's hat off with."

Karen chuckled.

Iria beamed. "See, you can smile."

"Yeah…" Karen sighed softly. "Guess I still can."

"Don't get all melancholy on me after I had you cheered up." Iria scolded with mock severity. She punched Karen companionably in the shoulder. "You won't solve anything if you keep brooding over it. Relax for a while. The answer'll come to you when you stop looking." Iria hopped down from the railing. "Well, I'm off. Got to find Tiber, kick his ass. I'm sure he's done something to deserve it. Gotta keep those men in line, or they start thinking they run the show."

"Why don't you just tell him how you feel?" Karen asked slyly. "Most men respond better to a simple declaration than by a lady attempting to tear them into confetti as proof of their love."

"Hey, no, wait a second here, back up, Iria Kinneas falls for no man, none, uh uh, wrong answer, incorrect, nope, never, never, never." Iria protested so vehemently that Karen thought she was going to shake her hair out of her ginger colored braid and cause her brown leather gloves to come flying off her hands from the force of her making a clear 'back off' gesture with them. Karen snickered. "I'm not in love with Tiber Dias. Never never never. He's a player."

"Uh huh. So are you."

"And he's a flirt."

"I repeat, so are you."

"He's a cocky hotshot who's too sure of himself…"

"Sounds like a certain young sniper I know…"

"…And he's a pretty boy." Iria paused, then added. "If you call me a pretty boy, I'll shoot your braid off."

Karen just grinned.

"Anyway…I've got stuff to do, people to be. Do yourself a favor and relax a little. You're going to give yourself an ulcer." Iria said, gathering the scattered threads of her dignity up around her. "Catch you later, Almasy."

Karen sighed as she watched her friend strut off. She had a point. –I should do something to relax a little. It's been a while since I did…and that was doing a three hour run in the training center. Hardly relaxing.- Karen sighed deeply, tasting the feel of water in the air with simple pleasure. –Go shopping, maybe. It's been ages since I did. Can't just let those paychecks build up and do nothing with them.- she smiled a bit. –Mother always said shopping was the cure for everything…-

Both relaxed and energized by the notion, Karen got up to fetch her wallet.

Her fingers stroked over a soft rabbit's fur sweater in a soft pink. Beautiful, of course, but she couldn't see herself in it. Pink was a shade she never wore if she could help it. –Not my color.- she thought, ignoring the bustle around her as she caressed the soft knitted fabric as if it was the fur of some household pet. No, she couldn't see herself wearing this thing, it's soft, refined elegance as unsuited to her as feathers were to a cat. But her mother...

Karen sighed, and picked the sweater up by it's shoulders, holding it up to herself as she turned to face a mirror. She could see her mother wearing this..and for a moment, she looked frighteningly like Quistis Trepe as she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her hair was just as gold, though her hair was a darker, ruddier shade than her mother's had ever been, and she wore it much longer than Quistis ever had, confined usually to a long braid that fell down the middle of her back. Her eyes were blue, as Quistis's were, but closer in their icy, intense shade to her father's cold gaze. The lashes surrounding them were thicker, and darker, than Quistis's had ever been. She was a little taller than her mother too, and a bit more muscular, though her figure was just as solidly curved as Quistis's was. Her face was a feline heart shape, different from her mother's nearly perfect oval, surely the legacy of some long dead and forgotten relative since she certainly hadn't gotten it from her father either.

She didn't like to think she looked very much like mother…or her father…in anything but basic coloring. Which was why it unnerved her so when she would glance in a mirror, or at her reflection in water, and see her mother staring back at her…or her father.

Karen sighed, and lowered the sweater, folding it back up and putting it back on the shelf.

It wasn't her color, anyway.

"If you don't stop fidgeting, I'm going to end up piercing your ear the hard way." Sara said with a long suffering sigh as she carefully, very carefully, attempted to finish cutting Elias's hair without accidentally chopping off something that wouldn't grow back. Why couldn't the man sit still?!

Elias shifted a bit more in his seat nonetheless, staring irritably in the mirror. "I just don't know what to do about it. Take it up with her directly, or through official channels. I don't know what good either of them will do. Officially, she'd get reprimanded, if that. It wouldn't even go on her records. Unofficially, I seriously doubt I could even ruffle her feathers. She's very cold, and very collected, and utterly unflappable, is Karen Almasy."

"And you're going to be scalped if you don't sit still." Saira reminded him. "Or I'm going to accidentally sever your spine at the neck."

"I don't think your scissors are sharp enough to do that." Elias said doubtfully.

"Do you want to find out?" She almost snapped.

"Not really…"

"Then sit still."

Elias did his best.

"You know…." Sara went on, more calmly now that she wasn't concerned about accidentally maiming the son of Squall Leonheart. "You think too much."

"Hmph."

"I'm serious. I've known you since you were three, Elias Leonheart. And you've always thought way too much. Do you know how to have fun?"

"Of course I know how to have fun." Elias said, vaguely suspecting he was being insulted.

"You don't show it. Look, you come here what, every five or six weeks?"

He had to think about that for a moment. "There about, yeah. Whenever I get tired of raking my hair out of my eyes or my mother or my sister get tired of me looking like an unshorn sheep."

"And every time you come here, every six weeks, you're brooding about something." Sara said persistently. "And if you can find me a sheep with straight brown hair, I'll drink a bottle of shampoo. You look just like your father."

Elias thought about that for a moment. "I do not."

"Yeah, you do. You have his eyes, and his hair. I ought to know. I cut his too. You're built like he is, you're a little taller than him, but not by much. You have his face."

"…I do not." He repeated again, staring at himself in the mirror.

"Yeah you do." She patted his shoulder. "But don't worry. It's a cute face."

"I don't want to be cute."

"You sound like Caira." She put aside her scissors and glopped a massive amount of something vaguely whipped cream-like in his hair and ruffled it through. "She's overdue for a trim. Get her in here, would you?"

"She could probably use the outing. She's kind of depressed." He replied as Sara assaulted him with a hairdryer.

"I'm not surprised. She wants so badly to do well." Sara replied over the drone of the dryer, running some sort of a comb brush thing through his hair as she dried it. He closed his eyes.

"She wants too badly to do well." He said under his breath.

"Hm?"

"Nothing."

"Well, there you go." She assaulted him with a mist of hairspray and gave him a little push off his chair. "All done."

Elias ruffled a hand through his hair out of habit. Sara chuckled. "That'll be four hundred and fifty gil."

He tossed handed her an even six hundred. "Keep the change. I'll see you."

Sara smiled, and pocketed the bill. "Bye."

-I don't look like my father.- Elias thought ruefully, walking out of the little salon. He glanced at his reflection in the glass of the window of a boutique. Brown hair, perpetually slightly unruly, sapphire blue eyes. Broad shoulders, slim waist, long legs. The hint of strong muscle beneath his black shirt, but of course there was that, he'd been trained to become a SeeD since he was a toddler. He was a solider.

Like his father.

He scowled at his reflection in the window.

It faded momentarily as he looked through his reflection, to find himself staring into another pair of blue eyes that were staring up at him. Puzzled, he up closer to the glass.

And found himself practically nose to nose with Karen Almasy, separated only by that glass plane.

He swore under his breath, and glared. She returned his glare coolly, evenly, her expression unreadable.

"Out here." He demanded. "Now."

She couldn't hear him, of course. But she understood. He saw her nod, curtly, as she turned with a flick of dark golden hair and blazing blue eyes.

He bared his teeth slightly, in something that didn't at all resemble a smile. –I'm sick of this.- He'd deal with her now, person to person. He was tired of debating on the good of debating as instructor to instructor.

It didn't help his mood at all that she was her usual cool self when she stepped out of the little boutique, her expression bored and indifferent. "Fancy seeing you here, Lionheart. Doing a little shopping?" She asked mildly.

"Cut the small talk, Almasy." He snapped, the rage in his voice surprising him.

Karen flicked one golden brow ever so slightly. "Touché."

Elias fought, and managed, to bring his temper back into some semblance of control. "We need to talk."

"Do we? Care to tell me why?"

"About Caira."

"Caira? I believe that we discussed her this morning."

"Yes, we did."

"I have nothing else to say on the subject. She's my trainee." Karen shrugged slightly, as if that was the end of it.

"And she's my sister." Elias said tensely.

"So she is. What does that have to do with anything?"

"She's my sister." He repeated. "And I don't like watching my sister suffer under a heavy handed, compassionless instructor."

That shook her a bit, he noted with a tiny, grim bit of pleasure. "What?" she asked.

"You heard me."

"Yes, I did, but I don't understand you."

Elias narrowed his eyes. "You're harsh, you're cruel. You push, and push, and push. There's never a word of praise out of you, never a word of reassurance. Are you trying to break your students?"

"I'm trying to make my students into SeeDs. I usually succeed." Karen retorted. "I don't like to fail."

"So you're willing to break my sister because you don't want to fail?"

"I didn't say that."

"You don't like to fail."

"No, I don't. Do you?"

"This isn't about me."

"Isn't it?" Karen asked softly. She stiffened her spine, straightened her shoulders, and glared up at him, any hint of any advantage he might have had by surprising her gone. "You don't like how I handle your sister's training."

"No, I don't." He said through gritted teeth.

"I'm quite aware of it. You make it pathetically obvious. I'll say this, Lionheart, and this is the last I'll say on the subject. Your sister is my student, a puzzling, difficult student, but one I'm dedicated to helping. I'm aware that you don't approve of my methods. I'm aware you probably don't like me personally very much. And I don't particularly care. You start making my job harder, Lionheart, and I'll have you brought up on interference charges with the Board so fast and hard you'll think you got plowed by a late train. It's hard enough as it is."

"You're threatening to bring me up on charges?" he laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You? I could do the same. And you know it."

"You could protest that I'm harder than I need to be. It'd be looked into, and I might get reprimanded. I could hit you with interference, and you could lose your license."

"I wouldn't lose my license." Elias said confidently.

"Probably not, but the investigation would go on your record." She cocked her head slightly. "You're a good instructor. I wouldn't want that. But I'd do it to protect Caira."

"She needs to be protected." Elias agreed. "But not from me."

"So you think." Karen flicked her braid back over her shoulder, and favored him with an absolutely withering glare. "Worry about your own pupils, Lionheart. Let me worry about mine." She paused, then said, softly. "I worry about her more than you ever could. If something happens to her…it's on my head. Not yours."

Elias was literally stunned silent, as Karen closed her eyes, turned away, and walked silently off. He watched her go, for the second time that day, surprise mingling with frustration. –Then why do you push her so? If you worry about her so much, why do you show no concern for her?- he shook his head. –I don't understand you. I don't understand you at all…-

Karen was angry enough by the time she got back to Garden to rip steel plate into little pieces with her bare hands. –Abusive? Me? An abusive instructor?! Hard, maybe…no…surely…but…but abusive?! I…just do what's best for them, what's best for my students. Don't I?-

She slammed the door to her rooms shut so hard she knocked over a small wooden shelf, scattering it's contents all over her living room floor. She didn't notice. –Tough love. It's just tough love. Sometimes you have to be hard on them to get results. If you're too soft on them, they develop bad habits, habits that can get them killed. I don't want my students to die. This isn't a game we're training these kids for. A real battle's not a simulation you can terminate the minute things don't go as planned. Dammit, dammit, why the hell do I care what he thinks?-

Karen sat down hard in the chair at her desk, staring out her window overlooking the quad. Normally, her view of it's water gardens soothed her. At the moment, she didn't see them any more than she saw the knocked-over shelf. –I don't want to be mother all over again, only opposite. Her sin was not being hard enough on Father, and they both paid for it. Will mine be being too hard on Caira?…-

She gritted her teeth, and spun around in her chair to face her console. Her message light was blinking on her computer, flashing in the brilliant red that signified an urgent message. –What the fuck now?!-

She punched a finger at the screen, and was mildly surprised and seriously disgusted to see no less than twelve urgent messages waiting in her in box. –I only stepped out for a few fucking hours. What the hell could have gone so wrong while I was gone to merit this?-

She opened one at random. Daliski's mother didn't approve of his grades on his midterm, and wanted to discuss the point allocation on his essay question with his instructor. "Bite me." She muttered under her breath, deleting it without a second thought. She wasn't going to debate battle tactics with a rich housewife who'd never even so much as seen a television documentary on war.

The next, from the student affairs board, succeeded in breaking her out of her black mood.

*****URGENT******. WHEREABOUTS OF STUDENT 564424 LEONHART, CAIRA UNKNOWN. STUDENT FAILED TO REPORT TO CLASS FOLLOWING MORNING TRAINING SESSON WITH INSTRUCTORS 52 ALMASY, KAREN AND 67 LEONHART, ELAIS. STUDENT HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED ANYWHERE ON BALAMB GARDEN GROUNDS IN OVER EIGHT HOURS. INSTRUCTOR 52 ALMASY REQUESTED.

Caira, missing? Caira wasn't prone to wondering off.

Hadn't Squall himself told her that she'd spoken to her mother after their little training debacle this morning?…

She opened another.

Karen, where the bloody hell did you go?! It's not like you to just vanish. Report to my office immediately upon viewing this message.

Squall Leonheart, Commander, SeeD Special Forces

Frowning, she opened the most recent, timestamped at only fifteen minutes before.

INSTRUCTOR 52 ALMASY, KAREN TO REPORT TO COMMANDER LEONHEART IMMIDATELY UPON VIEWING OF THIS MESSAGE. YOU'VE GOT THREE HOURS, ALMASY, OR YOUR ASS IS MINE AND JUST WATCH YOUR MOTHER TRY TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS ONE.

Xu, Headmaster, Balamb Garden.

-I never did like Xu much.- Karen thought irreverently. –Why do I get the feeling that that sediment is mutual?…-

She punched a couple of keys and dialed into Squall's office.

"Instructor 52, Almasy, Karen, reporting. I apologize for the delay. I was off duty, and chose to spend some time off Garden grounds." Karen said in a rush as soon as Squall's very tired looking face appeared on screen.

"Nevermind that, just get up here." Squall said wearily. "Have you seen my son?"

"I…think I might have seen him while I was in Balamb, sir." She said uncomfortably. "I'm unaware of whether or not he's still in the town, or whether he's returned to Garden ahead of me."

"I'll send someone to find him, then." Squall sighed heavily.

She'd never seen him look so tired. "Sir…what happened?"

"Caira's gone. Apparently not of her own will. Also currently missing is SeeD 2013, Dias, Tiber. He was part of the prelim search party sent to look for her, and he vanished shortly after they set out."

"Holy fucking shit."

"That's something of an understatement, Karen. I'd rather brief you in person. If you don't mind….?"

She tossed the screen a salute. "No, sir, of course not. I'll be right there. Almasy out."

She was already running out the door when the screen flashed off.

Karen was surprised to find Squall's office quite crowded when she arrived.

"Hey, Karen." Iria Kinneas gave Karen a faint, troubled smile from where she leaned against the far wall, arms folded defensively over her chest. Karen recalled what Squall had said about Tiber being possibly involved, and ached for her friend. "Took you long enough."

Karen made a face at her. "I was out shopping…on your advice, no less."

"I told you to go shopping?"

"No, you told me to go out and do something enjoyable and relax."

"Ohhhhhhhh that's right." Iria nodded sagely. "I was more hopping you'd go pick up a cute guy at a bar, but that's close enough."

Karen rolled her eyes.

Tara Dincht was sound asleep curled up in a chair, her usual reaction to being made to wait when she wasn't eating. Iria tossed a pillow off a couch at her, making her nearly fall out her chair as she started violently awake. "'M not asleep!"

"Y'are too. Get up. Karen's here, they'll be briefing us soon." Iria said with a snicker.

"Wasn't asleep." Tara's eyelids begin to lower despite her assertions otherwise. "Not in the least…bit….tired…."

Iria whacked her with another pillow. "Yeah, right. Sit up, Dincht."

"Better do as she says, Tara. Father's coming." Karen glowered as Elias came in, his eyes sumptuously bloodshot. He shot her a venomous glare before sitting on one of the chairs, ignoring her.

Karen followed suit as Squall, Xu, and a handful of others she vaguely recognized followed, taking up position at the front of the room. Tara sat up at attention, and Iria stood up straight, as Squall, looking tired, ran a hand back through his silver-shot brown hair and begain.

"Thank you for assembling….you'll forgive me if I'm curt, as we're a bit short on time. As things stand, this is what we know. Student 564424, Leonheart, Caira, left her early morning training session with Instructors Almasy and Leonheart at approximately 7 hundred hours this morning, returned to Balamb Garden, and had breakfast with her mother, Sorceress Rinoa Heartilly Leonheart, during which she indicated that she intended to attend her first class at nine hundred hours after having showered and changed clothes." Karen had never heard Squall look so tired. His voice was calm and firm, his eyes full of almost panicked concern. "She never attended that class, or any of those following. It's been almost ten hours since anyone has seen Student Leonheart, on or off Garden Grounds. Through searches of Balamb Garden have turned up empty, as have preliminary searches of the surrounding area and Balamb Town."

"Due to the nature of Student 564424's family connections and the opinion of Balamb Garden's student psychologists, we've chosen to treat this as a kidnapping or a hostage situation, rather than a simple missing person situation." Xu went on after Squall halted and looked over at her. She looked and sounded like a cold professional businesswoman…as usual. "Better to assume the worst in a situation of this sort than assume the best, after all. As of yet, we have only potential clue on the identity of a possible kidnapping force."

"SeeD 2013, Dias, Tiber, was sent out on one of the preliminary search parties to scout Balamb Town, from which he promptly went missing. A search of his quarters showed that they'd been utterly cleaned out, right down to being scrubbed to destroy prints." A second man, one Karen recognized as the chief of SeeD/Garden Internal Investigations, went on. "And a background check with Galbadia Garden turned an intresting little bit of information. The SeeD 2013, Dias, Tiber, was slated for transfer to Balamb Garden a year and a half ago and the SeeD 2013, Dias, Tiber, who showed up at Balamb Garden aren't the same man at all." He pointed at the view screen behind them with a remote, causing the lights in the office to go dark and the screen to flash side-by-side profiles, both labeled as Dias, Tiber, SeeD Number 2013.

Clearly, nobody could ever mistake the two for the same person. The Tiber Dias Karen knew was tall, lean, and strong, boasting a head of long, silken blonde hair that had more than a few girls green with envy, and a face that made them sigh with longing. The other Tiber was as tall, as leanly muscled as the Tiber she knew, though his hair was an intermediate shade of browny-blonde, his eyes were more of a muddled hazel, and his appearance was nondiscript, at best.

Iria shivered, and Karen reached out to lay a soothing hand on her shoulder.

"We ran his description through some databases, came up with nothing. Physical description's not good enough…and we couldn't find prints to run." The man went on.

-Of course not.- Karen thought distractedly. –Tiber always wore gloves.-

"Clearly, however, if he was responsible or involved in the Leonheart disappearance, he wasn't working alone. He was accountable for most of the time of her absence, spending some of that time in the company of Instructor Leonheart." Squall said. "But it's the only clue, right now, that we have to go on. There's been no ransom note, no sign of how she was taken, or where."

"Or even if." Xu added. "But as I said, we have to assume that she was, indeed, taken."

"Which is where you come in. We can't let word of this get leaked out to the press." Squall's eyes were haunted. "As of right now, Caira's disappearance is on a strict Need To Know basis. If she was kidnapped, the kidnapper would want a media sensation and we can't give them that. If we can keep it hushed, if it gets leaked to the media, it'll be leaked by her abductors. As of right now, we only have a sketchy timeline of when the original Tiber Dias disappeared and the assumption that the fake had something to do with Caira's disappearance to go on, but go on it for now at least we must. The first place the fake contacted Balamb Garden was Dollet, signaling that he'd be taking the next train into Balamb. The real Tiber Dias vanished between Timber and Dollet, was possibly either killed or kidnapped himself in one of those two cities. Therefore, that's where you'll go. To Dollet first, then to Timber, to see what you can dig up in both cities. Anything you can be find would be of great help…we have so little to go on at this point, it's pathetic."

"You'll be the ones to go because the four of you know those involved better than anyone. Instructor Almasy's Caira's primary instructor; Instructor Leonheart her elder brother. All four of you know and considered yourselves friends with the fake Tiber Dias.And you're perhaps the best qualified to perform such a mission to boot."Xu said, her smile and her voice conveying her pleasure with how neatly that all tied together.

Karen closed her eyes. –And they call me cold…-

"You'll leave immediately." Squall said. "Transportation to Dollet's been arranged at Balamb; one of the transports will take you there. Faster than taking the trains. You're to report in daily, via a secured satellite link, and you're to report in as soon as you find anything you feel might be remotely useful. We'll keep you updated on what we know, as well. Any funds you require, any equipment, anything you require is at your disposal, except for additional personnel. Because this must be kept quiet for as long as possible, this is to be considered a Code One mission. No communication about the mission to anyone not directly involved." Squall paused, then added, "I know this is going to be hard. I know…..it's going to hurt….to be investigating a man you considered a good friend, as well as the investigation of a student and sibling. I know. I hate to ask it of you. But…" Squall's eyes were utterly and completely lost, the eyes of a devoted father, who for all the power he welded couldn't seem to find his daughter.

It was Iria who spoke then, of all people, her voice trembling with emotion, but her green eyes bright with purpose. "It's all right, Commander." She said, softly. "We're the best. We won't fail you."

Squall hung his head for a moment, his eyes clenched tight. Elias shivered, hunched over miserably, and covered his face with his hands. Karen looked over at him, at the way his shoulders were trembling, and concluded that he was crying. An unexpected wave a pity hit her. What was it like, to be so devoted to a sibling, only to find them missing, your friend suspected, and yourself assigned to the investigation?

She couldn't even imagine it. It was devastating enough to be the devoted teacher.

She got up, and laid a hand hesitantly on Elias's shoulder, in much the way she'd done for Iria. "We'll find Caira, Elias." She said softly in his ear. "I told you, I don't like to fail."

He nodded without looking up. She glanced over at Squall. "When do we leave?"

"Immediately." Squall replied, glancing from his son to Karen. "As quickly as you can get on those transports. There isn't any time to waste."

Karen nodded. "Lets get to it."

"Why does it have to be the ocean transports?" Tara asked nervously as she carefully walked up the plank and into the ship. "I hate these things. Why can't we take an airplane, or a train? They'd be faster."

"The train isn't any faster, and airplanes are too noisy and noticeable. Besides, Dollet doesn't have a landing area, and as far as I know only the Ragnarok class Estharian ships can land without one." Karen replied. "And those puppies are about as big and noisy as they come. Come on, you'll survive."

"I get seasick. What if I choke on it and die?" Tara asked forlornly.

"That's disgusting."

"It's possible!"

Iria rolled her eyes. "How about I push you overboard?" She asked. "And save you the trouble?"

"All right already, all right…" Tara said with a sigh as she vanished into the transport.

Karen sighed. "It's going to be a long ride…"

Karen sipped at her coffee and read through the information provided on the fake Tiber Dias. Sadly, there wasn't much; his face and retinal pattern didn't match anything in the criminal databases, and information on the real Tiber Dias was just as limited. It was easy to see why somebody trying to infiltrate SeeD would have chosen someone like the real Tiber; he was an orphan, was not particularly close to anyone growing up, and tended to keep to himself. He neither excelled as a SeeD, nor proved to be a failure. In other words, he was so average and so isolated that he literally _had_ fallen off the face without anyone really noticing. As long as the fake Tiber didn't go strolling around Galbadia Garden, the chances of him being uncovered were minimal.

What Karen didn't understand was why the fake Tiber had broken the real Tiber's pattern of isolationist behavior, and how he had managed to not only impersonate a SeeD, but perform better than the SeeD he was impersonating ever had. Sure, in some ways it made sense; he'd gotten himself tightly into the social circle of the son of Squall Leonhart, and clearly his target had been Caira Leonhart (if he was indeed the abductor)…but if anyone had bothered to really dig through the real Tiber's old files, his duplicity would have been uncovered. The real Tiber's old Galbadian files still had his old picture on them; only the copies the fake Tiber brought with him had been altered with the fake's picture. The fake's excellent performance as a SeeD was even more disturbing; you couldn't just pull a random twenty year old off the street, hand them a weapon, and push them out on the battlefield and expect them to excel. It took years of training and conditioning to create a SeeD, and unless the fake was a good deal older than he looked, he too had that kind of background, a concept which did not sit well with Karen.

All in all, a very distressing, and yet irritatingly vague, picture.

Karen put down the hardcopies she'd been reading with a sigh. She glanced around the cabin; Iria and Elias were asleep, and Tara was probably asleep (though she really did look rather green around the proverbial gills). Karen knew she should probably try and sleep too—sleep was a precious commodity on a mission—but what she really wished she could do was get up and pace; she was filled with nervous energy, and needed to work it off. Unfortunately, no outlet seemed to be presenting itself, and pacing around a rocking and pitching cabin while people were trying to sleep didn't seem wise or polite.

"Find anything useful?" Elias asked quietly.

Karen looked back over at him. " I thought you were asleep." His arms were crossed over his chest, and his eyes were closed; he certainly looked asleep, or very nearly at least.

He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Mmmm."

"No, I didn't really find anything. Just a lot a questions, and I think we have enough of them as it is. What we need are answers."

"I know."

Karen hesitated, then asked, "I suppose we're calling a truce until after Caira is found?"

One sapphire eye opened a crack to peer at her. "Truce?"

"We were in something of a conflict before." Karen pointed out sheepishly. "I thought it might be best if we got that out in the open and agreed not to fight over it or let it get in the way of the mission now, before something happens."

"Funny. I didn't think you could use tact." Elias remarked.

"Tact isn't exactly your strong suite, either." Karen retorted. "I wasn't the one who picked a fight with another instructor in the middle of Balamb."

"No, you were the one who tried to break a trainee of her fears by breaking her in half over her knee." Elias growled, opening his eyes to glare at her. When all Karen did was glare back, he relaxed and shut his eyes again. "I suppose you have a point that there isn't much point in arguing the entire time we're trying to work together. We're professionals. Our distaste for one another can't exactly take precedence over the need to fulfill the mission."

"You wouldn't be so bad if you weren't so god-damned convinced you're always right." Karen had to say.

"You wouldn't be so bad if you weren't a sadistic disciplinarian bitch." Elias replied without hesitation.

Karen shut her eyes and counted to twenty. "I'm not going to respond to that."

"What? You're not going to try and verbally castrate me?" Elias actually sounded surprised.

"I meant what I said." Karen replied. "So I'll stick to it. Though I think you should consider something."

"Which is?"

"We have a lot of the same friends." Karen replied, gesturing over at the sleeping girls. "Do you think they'd befriend a sadistic disciplinarian bitch?"

Elias didn't say anything for several long moments, before remarking. "They're no more likely to befriend a sadistic bitch than they are an egotistical bastard. I'm going back to sleep."

Karen smiled a bit to herself—perhaps it wasn't an admission of guilt, but it was more than she'd expected him to say--then closed her eyes. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well rest a bit…

She was asleep almost as soon as she'd closed her eyes.

"All right. We should start by scooping the town for information." Karen said, unrolling a map of the city on a table in the room they'd rented at the local inn upon landing in Dollet. "Unforunately, that's not going to be easy: it's been a long time since our fake first passed through, and this is a sizable urban center. Anyone got contacts here?"

Iria raised a hand. "I've got a few contacts in the local black market. They tend to keep a close watch on SeeD's, so they might know something."

"There's the local SeeD Embassy." Elias remarked, pointing to a structure outline in blue on the map. "He'd have had to check in there when he either entered town or started impersonating Tiber Dias."

"I did some undercover here two years ago. As far as I know, nobody ever knew I was a SeeD." Tara said. The other three looked over at her in surprise. "It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to slip back into some of the joints the underworld types use and ask some questions. Word generally gets out about things like this, y'know, so I could probably pick something up."

"All right." Elias ran a hand back through his hair. "So I'll go to the Embassy, Iria will contact her informants, and Tara will see if there's any useful loose talk among the locals. That will leave Karen free if something comes up."

Karen considered that for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I don't want Tara going under by herself. If the fake has been through here, we can't guarantee her old cover is still intact, and it _won't_ be if he's still here and he sees or gets wind of her being here. We should be there for backup. If Iria makes her contacts this morning, and Elias and I go to the Embassy, then we can all go with Tara this evening."

Elias looked at her doubtfully. "Why should you have to come with me?"

"When have you ever seen a SeeD travel alone, except when in transit between Garden Assignments?" she retorted. "Nobody'll ever believe _you're_ in transit. If you got reassigned, everyone in SeeD would know."

Elias nodded. "You've got a point."

Tara shook her head. "Won't work. I'd be more comfortable with the backup, but most of the underworld types don't like to talk when there's strangers around."

Iria smiled wryly. "The Black Nova." Iria said confidently.

"What?" Karen asked, baffled.

"It's a club run by one of the local crime families. It's popular, last I checked, with the young and fashionable in Dollet because some…ahhh….services and goods of questionable legality are available there. Several of the local gangs do business there; it's a way of hiding right in public."

"I hadn't had the Black Nova in mind, but it's a good idea." Tara admitted. "I've got as good a chance of finding something out there as I do anywhere. Nobody would think anything of four strange people there."

"If the Instructors don't blow our cover." Iria said.

"Good point." Tara agreed, chewing on her lower lip worriedly.

"Why would we blow your cover?" Elias demanded, offended.

"You're on the intense side, and Karen's idea of having a good time is grading papers. You just won't blend." Iria explained.

"I can blend." Karen said defensively.

Elias just glared.

Iria held up her hands as if to shield herself with them. "Just concerned is all, just concerned. Neither of you get out much, so…"

"So you two hit the Embassy. I'm going to go procure suitable disguises for tonight, and Iria can make her contacts." Tara interrupted. She smiled good naturedly when Karen and Elias shifted their attention to her. Iria shot her a grateful look; Tara gave her a discreet wink.

"You just want to go shopping." Elias said accusingly.

"Oh, I fit life's pleasures in when I can." Tara said cheerfully. She grabbed a mint off the bowl of candies that Karen had moved to make room for the map, unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth, grinning.

Elias gave a long-suffering sigh. "All right, all right. Lets get to it."

"Don't just burst in there and announce you're investigating your sister's disappearance. This is supposed to be a NTK case." Karen cautioned, tugging irritably at the back of her SeeD uniform skirt. Karen avoided having to wear her SeeD uniform; she never felt comfortable in skirts or dresses. Something about them made her feel half-naked. In Balamb she got away with wearing a pair of the men's dress pants at official functions, but she didn't think that would be particularly wise here.

Elias gave her a withering glance. "I wasn't planning on it."

"Do you have a cover story?" Karen pressed.

"I'll…think of one." Elias said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand.

"Well, Lionheart, you'd better think quick." Karen said as they came up to the doors of the SeeD Embassy.

Elias paused at the glass double doors, tugged at his uniform jacket, and stared at his reflection in the glass for a moment. "I've got it." He announced, before pushing the doors open and striding confidently inside.

Karen followed with as much confidence as she could muster considering the fact that she felt half-naked in that damned skirt. –Pants.- she thought irately. –I've got to bring up the concept of pants being a normal option in the standard dress uniform of a female SeeD. This is absurd.-

Elias was flashing a clerk at the front desk his SeeD badge when she caught up with him. "Instructor # 67 Leonhart, Elias, and Instructor #52 Almasy, Karen, here on official business for Balamb Garden."

The clerk blanched slightly, but strove to hide it. "What business does Balamb have with us?" he asked strainedly. "We're under the jurisdiction of Galbadia Garden, not Balamb."

Karen smiled and perched on the edge of his desk. "Oh, come now, inter-Garden cooperation predates the Second Sorceress War. Last time I checked Headmaster Trepe-Almasy was a big proponent of the concept."

Elias gave her a dark look. "Karen…"

She ignored him. "Or do we need her permission directly to have access to the records we need here?"

The clerk cleared his throat. His eyes kept darting over to Karen's long legs. "Ah, well, that depends on the records. What do you need access to?"

–So, perhaps the dumb skirt serves a purpose after all.- Karen thought with a mix of chagrin and amusement.


	2. Update Notice

I appreciate that people are waiting for an update on this particular story, as it's one of my favorites (though one of the few I've never finished). I will probably get around to updating it at some point in the future, however, that is not likely to be anytime in the next few weeks (or months). I'm in the middle of rather intense college curriculum and working almost full time at the moment, which sadly puts my free time in the negative digits. I will more than likely update it either during spring break, assuming I have the time to write something other than term papers, or after class lets out for the semester, when I'll be climbing the walls out of boredom anyway. I'm very fond of this particular story, and if I'm going to work on it, I'm going to do it properly. It is still on my roster and I do still tinker with it. I thank everybody who's contacted me lately about the status of this story, and I'll try to get something presentable together sometime in the near future. Thank you!  
  
-Aletta 


End file.
